


The 1836 Beaumaris County Gaol Riot

by PostApocolypticAlien



Category: The X-Files
Genre: 1800s, Alternate Universe - Historical, F/M, Letters, Prison AU, Two major character deaths, artistic!mulder making a return, flashbacks kind of, sorry its all for the story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:00:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25957912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PostApocolypticAlien/pseuds/PostApocolypticAlien
Summary: Secrets are kept. Information withheld from one then withheld from another. Sometimes it was easier to go about the days thinking everything is normal. The unexplained doesn't always need an explanation. What is abnormal for some may be normal for others.[Summary may change]
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully, William | Jackson Van De Kamp/Original Character(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	1. PROLOGUE (P.1)

**Author's Note:**

> I’m going to do a similar thing here as I do with Time Can Heal. i.e. give you the chapters as they are then go back and sort out any inconsistencies or flaws when I edit. This is just to gauge your opinion of the overall plot. Because of this, I’m always happy to accept ideas of what to include if anyone has any but some things are going to be set in stone regardless.

The tray is balancing on his raised knee, the food threatening to fall off the plate as the lock is freed and the door is pushed open.

The room is mostly dark save for a few lines of sunlight that the curtains fail to keep out. William places the tray on the bedside table and smiles at the darkened figure still asleep. He heads over to the curtains, pulling them open and allowing the light to claim the bedroom. The man doesn’t stir and Will shakes him gently on the arm.

“Dad,” says Will. He shakes him again.

“Dad!” A little louder and still nothing. Usually he wakes at the slightest of touches.

A realisation comes over him as tears begin to pinprick in his eyes. His father has died.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Will is silent as the undertaker goes about his business. Sat at the kitchen table, he thought about all the things this would change, how strange it would be to walk around the farmhouse and know they were one person down.

“We should…” He sniffles, trying to think of the most practical things to do in this situation. “We should start going through his things soon as,” he says. “See what we can sell, what we can keep.”

Hannah is next to him, embracing him as much as her bump will allow. He leans back, seeking the comfort she’s offering.

“We don’t need to do anything yet,” Hannah says, her hands threading through his hair. Will shakes his head. He needs to do this.

.:.:.:.:.:.

With the spare boxes found in the basement, Will starts with the easy things on the shelves- books, candles, ornaments. It feels wrong to devoid the room of its items but it needs to be done, so he pushes his emotions aside and thinks practically.

“Don’t you think you’re rushing into this?”

He shakes his head as he takes the box away from her.

“It needs to be done,” is all he says.

He kneels on the floor, lifting up the covers and starting to pull the items from beneath the bed.

“Will—” but Will ignores her. The items beneath the bed were always a mystery to him.

He opens the box up, peering inside.

There’s not many things inside but Will reaches for the first thing he sees: A plain black book.

“What’s that?” Hannah asks, she moves from the doorway to sit on the bed.

Will also moves from his kneeled position. He sits on the bed next to her, opening the book.

It doesn’t take him long to realise it’s a sketchbook. Various drawings of objects and people litter the pages; faces and hands, a building on another page.

“I didn’t know he was such a good artist,” says Hannah.

“Me neither,” says Will. He flips through the pages, amazed at each little drawings he passes.

“He never told you?”

He hears the surprise in her voice.

“No,” Will answers, surprised himself. Why would his father keep something like this from him.

He turns the page and is greeted with a portrait of a woman. She’s looking at him, a tiny smile across her lips. As he scours the page, he finds small writing near the bottom- _Scully_ with the date _03/04/1836._

“Who do you think she was?” asks Hannah.

“I’m not sure.” But he has a feeling. He’s about to turn the page when Hannah stops him and points to the date.

“It was drawn two months before you were born.”

Will takes note and shuts the sketchbook, tossing it to the side of him. He looks in the box again; just a book and a stack of yellow paper remains.

He picks up the yellow paper first and upon further inspection, finds…

“They’re letters,” Will says. He takes the band keeping them together.

“Who to?”

He takes the first one, scanning his eyes through it and finds no name attached.

“I think to himself.” He begins going through each one, finding them dated from 1831 all the way to now- 1869.

“Thirty-eight years,” says Hannah, reading the dates herself.

He begins looking for the letters dated around the same time of as the portrait.

“What are you looking for?”

But Will ignores her, looking for the letters he wants. When he finds the correct dates, his eyes immediately starts scanning through the letter, looking for the information he needs.

When he comes across it, in a letter dated on his birthday.

William brings the paper away from him, digesting this information.

He puts the letters down and picks up the sketchbook again, turning to the portrait page.

“I think she’s my mother.”


	2. Prologue (P.2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not sure if I’ll go back and pair these prologues together but for now I’m kinda liking them separate. There may be a wait for the actual chapters but look out for the letters because I’m intending on writing them out fully and posting them.

Secrets are kept. Information withheld from one then withheld from another. Sometimes it was easier to go about the days thinking everything is normal. The unexplained doesn’t always need an explanation. What is abnormal for some may be normal for others.

William never needed to explain why he never had a mother. Having one would have been abnormal.

“Did he ever speak about her?” asks Hannah.

They sit at the kitchen table, the letters in a pile in front of them, sketchbook to the side. The mysterious life of one Fox William Mulder splayed out before them. Five years of life Will had never met presented to him in the form of art and personal musings.

_Did you want me to find this, Dad?_ He wonders as he looks at it all.

“Not often,” Will says, answering his wife’s question. “All he told me was she died when I was little.” He looks at her and shrugs. “I don’t remember her, before you ask.”

Hannah brings the portrait towards her.

“I couldn’t imagine not having a mother,” she says looking at the drawing.

“So what you gonna do with all this stuff?”

“Read through it,” Will answers simply. “Keep it, probably.”

“You’ve got four decades worth of letters to read through, then,” Hannah says with a slightly amused smile.

Will picks up the letter on top of the pile- the first letter, dated August 12th 1831.

For the first time, William felt a slight trepidation in reading the letters. He never thought his father was a man who hid things from him but there was five years of life that was completely unknown to him, five years of life that was kept hidden from him for a purpose. Now, with that information residing in his hand, Will wasn’t sure how he should feel about it.

Hannah’s hand lands onto his arm and he looks up from the letter.

“Just promise me you won’t get too obsessed?” she asks. “I want you to come to bed tonight.”

He takes her hand and gives it a squeeze with a small smile.

“I promise.”

And so Hannah leaves. Leaves him with the letters, a sketchbook of a woman who may or may not be his birth mother, and a history yet to be known.


End file.
